Comet Siding Spring Recap – Misconceptions and Anomalies [by Astronomy Live] – Video

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Comet Siding Spring Recap - Misconceptions and Anomalies [by Astronomy Live]
This video is by Astronomy Live; addressing some of the misconceptions about comet Siding Spring. Astronomy Live #39;s channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/messierhunter/ Link to the original...

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Comet Siding Spring Recap - Misconceptions and Anomalies [by Astronomy Live] - Video

Astronomy – Ch. 6: Telescopes (2 of 21) Diffraction of Light and the Telescope – Video

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Astronomy - Ch. 6: Telescopes (2 of 21) Diffraction of Light and the Telescope
Visit http://ilectureonline.com for more math and science lectures! In this video I will discuss the diffraction of light with respect to telescopes.

By: Michel van Biezen

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Astronomy - Ch. 6: Telescopes (2 of 21) Diffraction of Light and the Telescope - Video

How to Choose Binoculars for Astronomy and Skywatching

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One of the easiest ways to take a spacewalk without ever leaving Earth is to scan the night sky with binoculars from the comfort of a reclining lounge chair on a clear, dark night. But for the best experience, you better make sure those binoculars are actually designed for astronomy. To see our picks for the best binoculars of various sizes and specialties, read our Best Astronomy Binoculars: Editors' Choice wrap-up. If you'd like help picking for yourself, there are a few things you need to know.

Your eyes are marvelously adapted for sensing light and color, and for reacting to bright and dark. But it's your brain that builds your moving picture of the world.

You see in stereo. But your two eyes give you more than just depth perception.

True, the differences in data between your left and right eyes are integrated into depth information by your busy mind. Even though the vast distances of the universe make it challenging to perceive depth, if you inform yourself in advance with some knowledge about the objects you are going to be observing, you can begin to see the universe in 3D. Binoculars make this mental gymnastics faster and easier.

Binoculars are like eyeball extensions, keeping all your brain's visual circuits focused on the task of enjoying the wonders of space. Keeping both eyes walled off from distracting information plays a happy trick on your mental computer.

Depending on the pair you pick, you could see 25 or even 50 times more stars with binoculars than with your unaided eyes. This is not due to the magnification alone, but to the phenomenon of perceptive narrowing driving a flow state. Some people use the term focus, or clarity, to describe the feeling. But it's not an illusion; it's a measurable effect.

Telescopes are big. Even little ones are bigger, heavier and longer than most binoculars. So telescopes need to sit on tripods or rocker-boxes for stability. A hand-held spyglass might have been good enough for Captain Kidd, but every modern navy uses binoculars. Angling a long tube up toward the sky makes the shake problem even worse; your extended arm wiggles the front objective lens. Binoculars can lock in tightly to both your eye sockets and your hands are close in to your face for more stability. [Related: Best Telescopes for Beginner: A Buying Guide]

Telescopes do make objects look larger. But their main job is to gather light. Paradoxically, the more a telescope magnifies an object, the dimmer that object appears. That's a problem when observing deep-sky targets like comets, galaxies and widely diffuse star clusters. It's an issue for everything, really, except the moon which can be too bright and a few vivid planets.

Most telescopes use a single eyepiece. Binocular literally means "two eyes." You get twice the opportunity to paint your brain with starlight. Remember, seeing occurs in your mind's eye. For a most fulfilling visual experience, get all your brain's "wetware" working on it.

Telescopes show a small area. Binoculars, with their wider field of view, let you scan the sky for targets. And binoculars give you a much better appreciation for how objects relate to one another. They give you a better chance to see patterns in the cosmos.

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How to Choose Binoculars for Astronomy and Skywatching

Celestron SkyMaster 8×56 Binoculars Review: 2014 Edition

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Here's the situation: You only have, say, $250 to spend on binoculars. You want to sky-watch, but you also want to go birding, boating, hiking and you want to see the players at the game up close, even though your seats are in nosebleed country. You need an astronomy-capable medium size binocular. We think we've found a solution for you: Celestron's SkyMaster 8x56, our Editors' Choice for the best medium-size binoculars for astronomy.

Weighing only 38 ounces, you can carry these for hours during your busy outdoor day. At night, lie back in an outdoor recliner and you can hand-hold them for a good long while. The wide rubber bumpers on the oculars' lens-guards are comfortable enough to rest on your cheekbones and brow (eye "orbits"). [Related: See our Buyer's Guide: How to Choose Binoculars for Stargazing]

BUY a pair of Celestron SkyMaster 8x56 binoculars >> Below: See our Hands On Video Tour of Celestron's SkyMaster 8x56 (Click to Play):

But for the most soulful starlight absorption you'll want to spend $16 for a tripod adapter and perhaps up to $100 for a tripod with multi-axis head. Of course, you can use your existing camera tripod. Just make sure it doesnt wiggle in the wind; dancing stars will give you a headache.

These SkyMasters are sealed and wrapped in rubber. They won't slip in your hands, or slide around a moderately pitching boat deck. They were "nitrogen purged" at the factory in China, which means they've been injected with nitrogen gas, "chasing out" any water vapor before sealing the optical cans.

Best Astronomy Binoculars 2014 (Editors' Choice)

Taken together, these factors effectively "waterproof" the binoculars' optics (though the adjustable ocular ring and the center focus wheel could rust or corrode in time). They also make the optics resistant to condensation. You can still make them fog up by, say, taking them from your dry, air-conditioned den straight out into the hot muggy late-summer night. [And when you go back in again, after an hour or so in moist air, it'd be a good idea to leave the lens caps off until your 8x56s are completely dry.] Or save you stargazing for the night after the cold front passes. As every skywatcher soon learns, the crispest stars are seen on the coldest night.

Eyeglass wearers will be thankful for the relatively long 18mm of eye relief. [Eye relief is the distance from the eyepiece lens' surface to the last spot a full-width image can be seen.] You can probably get your glasses cozily up against the soft twist-up style lens guards to seal out stray light, which can distract you from reading those messages the stars are sending you.

The generous 7-millimeter exit pupil is wide enough for your mind to fall into. ["Exit pupil" is the area of virtual image at the binoculars' "focus point," the circle you look into.] We've notice relatively larger exit pupil diameters on small and medium Celestrons. The perfectly round disc of that exit pupil tells you something encouraging about the quality of the BaK-4 glass Porro prismswithin. A lesser binocular might show you some angular fall-off, especially towards the top of the exit pupil.

The 8x56s will focus no closer than about 25 feet (7.6 meters). That's enough for most terrestrial applications. If youre closer to an animal than that, you probably don't need it magnified unless it's tiny. Similarly, any sports activity taking place that close to you is de-facto a naked-eye proposition. The stars, of course are very, very far away. At 5.8 degrees, the Celestron's field of view is decidedly "medium" compared to, for example, the Vixen Ascot 10x50's 8.5 degrees. But its wide enough to get a satisfying sense of perspective on objects in the sky.

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Celestron SkyMaster 8x56 Binoculars Review: 2014 Edition

Celestron SkyMaster 25×100 Binoculars Review: 2014 Edition

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Bigness is a virtue in telescopes most of the time. The larger the light-bucket, the more photons ("raindrops" of light) it can collect. But big telescopic instruments are also heavier, more ungainly and can demand greater care and feeding. We've chosen the Celestron SkyMaster 25x100 binoculars as our Editors' Choice for large astronomy binoculars.

In the case of binoculars, serving up the universe in stereo gives you more than double the pleasure of one-eye on the sky. But servicing the demands of two eyes more than doubles the mass of the optical system. So as you scale up from the small portable "field glasses" that might be great for watching, say, fast moving racecars to the larger apertures appropriate for resolving the majesty of the slowly revolving stars, the glass gets very heavy, very quickly.

BUY a pair of Celestron SkyMaster 25x100 binoculars >> Below: Hands On Video Tour of Celestron's SkyMaster 25x100 (Click to Play):

At 156 ounces, Celestron's SkyMaster 25x100s are impossible to hold steady on the stars by hand. Dont even try. But perch them on a suitably hefty mount and theyll convey an optically accurate sky-watching experience that can move your soul. [Related: See our Buyer's Guide: How to Choose Binoculars for Stargazing]

So, buying these Celestrons means also buying a tripod and maybe a counter-weighted arm. But the binoculars are ready when you do: A solid-feeling "reinforced" metal bar forms a keel, from the objective lens covers at the front to the bulbous "prism warts" towards the rear. A built-in tripod adapter slides along this spine; a knurled knob tightens the adapter down at your preferred position. [When your observing night is over, the bar makes a comfortably grip-able lifting fixture; which you've likely set it at the natural balance point. So you can "one-hand" these heavy beasts into their protective case.]

Now that you're set-up, have a good look at your Celestron 25x100s, starting at the business end where youll put your eyes. The 4-millimeter "exit pupils" (the bright spots of actual image) look eerily small surrounded by the large-looking 20 mm eyepieces. But they're big enough to fill most adults' dark-adapted eyes. And the 15 mm "eye relief" (the distance from the eyepiece's surface to the last spot a full-width image can be seen) is long enough for eyeglass wearers to get a well-focused broad view. [Our Editors' Choice Runner-Up Orion Astronomy 20x80 binoculars has a slightly longer eye relief at 17 mm.] You probably won't even have to fold down the rubber eyepiece-guards.

Best Astronomy Binoculars 2014 (Editors' Choice)

Those eyepieces each (independently) rotate through 450 degrees to provide critical sharp focus. They aren't really "diopters," such as you find on lower-power binoculars. It's best to think of this whole rig as a pair of side-by-side 100 mm refractor telescopes, with image-erecting prisms built-in, and separate non-removable eyepieces

Jump to the other end of the binoculars, look "backwards" through the 100 mm objective lenses and you'll notice the barrels' interiors are well knurled. Small raised rings down the length of the tubes act as light diffusers, baffling the prisms from late-arriving rays, reducing scattered light, which can compromise your image.

And the images these big eyes can pass are astounding. I like trying to pick out clusters of galaxies in large binoculars, like springtime's Leo Triplets (they aren't really siblings). But just to manage expectations, some of the best galaxy groups are too faint and faraway for even big binoculars, like autumn's Stephan's Quintet (they don't really play music, anyway).

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Celestron SkyMaster 25x100 Binoculars Review: 2014 Edition

Oberwerk Mariner 8×40 Binoculars Review: 2014 Edition

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I'm not the world's best planner. A skywatching trip is likely to be a spur of the moment thing. When a clear, dark night rattles my cage, I need to just "grab and go." And I may not put my binoculars back on the shelf until many days, many miles and many other activities later.

The Oberwerk Mariner 8x40s can take the travel. They excel at astronomy. They're totally small enough to wear for a full afternoon of birding or soccer-match watching. And, as the Mariner name implies, they are waterproof and can absorb an occasional bump from sliding across a boat deck or cabin top, without going out of alignment. That's why we've picked the Oberwerk Mariner 8x40 binoculars as our Editors' Choice for Best Small Astronomy Binoculars.

BUY the Oberwerk Mariner 8x40 binoculars >> - Below: See our Hands On Video Tour of Oberwerk's Mariner 8x40 (Click to Play):

At 5.5 inches (14 centimeters) from front to back and 6.5 inches (16.5 cm) wide, these Oberwerks make a brawny, satisfying handful of tech. If you're new to comparing astronomy binoculars, it may strike you as odd that we're calling these "small." Certainly, there are many smaller, lighter binoculars on the market. What we mean is, "small, but still good for astronomy." And at astronomy, these "binos" excel. [Related: See our Buyer's Guide: How to Choose Binoculars for Stargazing]

At 37 ounces (1 kilogram), the 8x40s are a meaty chunk to wield all night long. But they are quite comfortable. They stay out of the way, even if you are also working a telescope. In fact, I found them to be the perfect complement to a telescope. Use your Mariners to scan a wide sky field for an interesting object or region, then warp yourself in closer with your mono 'scope. If you're into astrophotography, you can enjoy the sky with your Oberwerks while your telescope is busy recording photons (during which time, you will NOT want to touch it).

You'll be impressed at the tack-sharp points of stars and the crisp detail when observing lunar terrain with these Mariners. As you reel in the tantalizingly dim, milky light of other galaxies, or of diffuse star clusters within Earth's own galaxy, Oberwerk's impressively high contrast-ratio will sear those stars into your memory. And you may happily lose yourself for many minutes in the celestial depths of the Mariner's unusually wide 8.4-degree field of view. Your mind may switch from just "skywatching" to virtual sky-walking. That's exactly where you want to be.

Build-quality, optical path and prism design are responsible for the mass factor. These Mariners, like every set of astronomy binoculars we reviewed, use the optically superior "porro-prism" design as opposed to smaller, lighter and less costly "roof prisms." You'll find a few very similar binoculars with other name brands on them, but none with better coatings, quality control, shock protection or water resistance.

As with any optical device, ability to gather light is directly related to aperture (optical opening). For the most part, the bigger the aperture, the better, as long as the light rays remain collimated (aligned). Here, these Oberwerks excel: The nicely coated 40mm objective lenses haul in more photons from faint stars than all but the most expensive competitors.

Stepping outside your home, your binoculars are often required to "equilibrate" to the cooler temperatures of night, especially in wintertime. The Mariners' internal optics are nitrogen-purged, perfectly coated and properly sealed. They will not fog as quickly as most other brands.

If you wear eyeglasses (I do), you'll appreciate the way the guards around the eyepieces work. A quarter-turn rotates them fully up or down. It's easy to get your bespectacled eyes just the right distance from the "exit pupil," the round spot where the image forms. My eyes are set close together. The bridge of my nose started to feel just a little bit pinched, right at the point where I got the exit pupils to resolve into a single stereoscopic image; my only moment of discomfort while observing with these Mariners.

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Oberwerk Mariner 8x40 Binoculars Review: 2014 Edition

Making Cubesats do Astronomy

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Will cubesats lead to a new technological branch of astronomy? Goddard engineers are taking the necessary steps to make cubesat-sized telescopes a reality. (Credit: NASA, UniverseToday/TRR)

One doesnt take two cubesats and rub them together tomake static electricity. Rather, you send them on a briefspace voyage to low-earth orbit (LEO) and space them apart some distance and voil, you have a telescope. That is the plan of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center engineers and also what has been imagined by several others.

Cubesats are one of the big crazes in the new space industry. But nearly all that have flown to-date are simple rudderless cubes taking photos when they are oriented correctly. The GSFC engineers are planning to give two cubes substantial control of their positions relative to each other and to the Universe surrounding them. With one holding a telescope and the other a disk to blot out the bright sun, their cubesat telescope will do what not even the Hubble Space Telescope is capable of and for far less money.

Semper (left), Calhoun, and Shah are advancing the technologies needed to create a virtual telescope that they plan to demonstrate on two CubeSats. (Image/Caption Credit: NASA/W. Hrybyk)

The 1U, the 3U, the 9U these are all cubesats of different sizes. They all have in common the unit size of 1. A 1U cubesatis 10 x 10 x 10 centimeters cubed. A cube of this size will hold one liter of water (about one quart) which is one kilogram by weight. Or replace that water with hydrazine and you have very close to 1 kilogram of mono-propellent rocket fuel which can take a cubestat places.

GSFC aerospace engineers, led by Neerav Shah, dont want to go far, they just want to look at things far away using two cubesats. Their design will use one as a telescope some optics and a good detector and the other cubesat will stand off about 20 meters, as they plan, and function as a coronagraph. The coronagraph cubesat will function as a sun mask, an occulting disk to block out the bright rays from the surface of the Sun so that the cubesat telescope can look with high resolution at the corona and the edge ofthe Sun. To these engineers, the challenge is keeping the two cubesats accurately aligned and pointing at their target.

Only dedicated Sun observing space telescopes such asSDO, STEREO and SOHO are capable of blocking out the Sun, but their coronagraphs are limited. Separating the coronagraph farther from the optics markedly improves how closely one can look at the edge of a bright object. Withthe corongraph mask closer to the optics, more bright light will still reach the optics and detectors and flood out what you really want to see. The technology Shah and his colleagues develop can be a pathfinder for future space telescopes that will search for distant planets around other stars also using a coronagraph to reveal the otherwise hidden planets.

The engineers have received a$8.6-million investment from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and are working in collaboration withthe Maryland-based Emergent Space Technologies.

An example of a 3U cubesat 3 1U cubes stacked. This cubesat size could function as the telescope of a two cubesat telescope system. It could be a simple 10 cm diameter optic system or use fancier folding optics to improve its resolving power. (Credit: LLNL)

The challenge of GSFC engineers is giving two small cubesats guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) as good as any standard spacecraft that has flown. They plan on using off-the-shelf technology and there are many small and even large companies developing and selling cubesat parts.

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Making Cubesats do Astronomy

Management Lessons From NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover

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On a hot August Earth night in 2012, NASAs Curiosity rover began its celebrated seven minutes of terror slowing from 12,600 mph to a triumphant gentle landing at Mars Gale Crater.

The engineering feat of sending this pickup truck-sized rover rocketing through Mars thin atmosphere on a years-long mission to its surface instilled most Americans with newfound pride. And it made those of us who grew up with Apollo a little wistful.

Rob Manning the man arguably at the center of it all has documented both the acrobatics needed to enable the rover to slow itself to land and the decade of design and testing that led up to this moment in Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiositys Chief Engineer.

Mannings just published account of years at NASAs venerable Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), co-written with best-selling non-fiction author William L. Simon, will resonate most with those who want an excellent inside take on the rigorous and often arduous task of designing interplanetary landers and the eureka moments that affords.

Courtesy Smithsonian Books

Manning deserves credit for bringing his own sense of candor and humility to the prose, even if the book sometimes lacks the kind of narrative verve that might have given it broader appeal.

The promise of science with the rovers ten instruments notwithstanding, a large part of the book addresses the mantra of EDL Entry, Descent and Landing.

After all, if Manning and his JPL colleagues cant land safely on the Martian surface, the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission and a decade of design work and years of potential science will disappear with it.

[Mars] has too much atmosphere to land as we do on the moon and not enough to land as we do on Earth, the authors write. We have to combine all of the tricks we use to land on Earth (heat shields, parachutes) with the techniques we use to land on the Moon (retro rockets, air bags), among many others.

But if anything, live coverage of the missions Entry, Descent and Landing with continual social media reporting from the JPL control room, made us all realize how much times had changed since NASAs Viking 1 landed on Mars some forty years earlier. I personally streamed Curiositys landing at a local Starbucks. Within minutes after the landing at 10:30 pm PDT August 5, the authors note, images taken from the front and rear hazcams arrived at JPL, giving startling visceral proof to our anxious team that Curiosity had landed on Mars. With Mt. Sharp a few kilometers to the south,

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Management Lessons From NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover

"An Analytical View of ARMA’s Artificial Intelligence" Part 4 – Video

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"An Analytical View of ARMA #39;s Artificial Intelligence" Part 4
An analysis of ARMA #39;s struggling AI...ARMA is an amazing open world military sim. But the AI seriously needs work. This demonstration is even with augmenters like Zeus AI TPWAS. Now I realize...

By: Burner

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"An Analytical View of ARMA's Artificial Intelligence" Part 4 - Video

Innovations: Elon Musk: With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon.

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Innovations: Elon Musk: With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon.

Google Bolsters Artificial Intelligence Efforts With Oxford University Partnership

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Google Inc is expanding its artificial intelligence initiative, hiring more than half a dozen leading academics and experts in the field and announcing a partnership with Oxford University to "accelerate" its efforts.

Google will make a "substantial contribution" to establish a research partnership with Oxford's computer science and engineering departments, the company said on Thursday regarding its work to develop the intelligence of machines and software, often to emulate human-like intelligence.

Google did not provide any financial details about the partnership, saying only in a post on its blog that it will include a program of student internships and a series of joint lectures and workshops "to share knowledge and expertise."

Google, which is based in Mountain View, California, is building up its artificial intelligence capabilities as it strives to maintain its dominance in the Internet search market and to develop new products such as robotics and self-driving cars. In January Google acquired artificial intelligence company Deep Mind for $400 million according to media reports.

The new hires will be joining Google's Deep Mind team, including three artificial intelligence experts whose work has focused on improving computer visual recognition systems. Among that team is Oxford Professor Andrew Zisserman, a three-time winner of the Marr Prize for computer vision.

The four founders of Dark Blue Labs will also be joining Google where they will be will be leading efforts to help machines "better understand what users are saying to them."

Google said that three of the professors will hold joint appointments at Oxford, continuing to work part time at the university.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; editing by Andrew Hay)

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Google Bolsters Artificial Intelligence Efforts With Oxford University Partnership

New, faster therapeutic hypothermia techniques

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

23-Oct-2014

Contact: Kathryn Ryan kryan@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News @LiebertOnline

New Rochelle, NY, October 23, 2014Rapid lowering of body temperature following an acute myocardial infarction (MI) can be an effective therapeutic strategy to minimize damage to the heart muscle caused by the loss and restoration of blood flow to the heart. While hypothermia shows clinical promise, current methods to cool the heart are insufficient. Faster, more effective techniques are needed to realize the full cardioprotective potential of this emerging intervention, as described in an article in Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management website at http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ther.2014.0016 until November 23, 2014.

In the article "Hypothermia in the Setting of Experimental Acute Myocardial Infarction: A Comprehensive Review", Michael J. Herring and coauthors from Good Samaritan Hospital and Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA) and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (Torrance, CA) examine the benefits and limitations of past and current methods of delivering hypothermia. These include topical regional hypothermia, an open-chest method of cooling the heart; endovascular cooling using a heat exchange balloon catheter to cool the blood that flows through the heart; surface cooling with blankets or convective-immersion therapy; and other methods.

"This timely review on the use of therapeutic hypothermia targeting myocardial necrosis emphasizes the need for additional investigations to maximize the benefits of this experimental therapy in promoting recovery in this patient population," says W. Dalton Dietrich, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management and Kinetic Concepts Distinguished Chair in Neurosurgery, Professor of Neurological Surgery, Neurology and Cell Biology, University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine.

###

About the Journal

Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management provides a strong multidisciplinary forum covering all aspects of hypothermia and temperature considerations relevant to this exciting field, including its application in cardiac arrest, spinal cord and traumatic brain injury, stroke, and burns. Novel findings from translational preclinical investigations as well as clinical studies and trials are featured in peer-reviewed articles, state-of-the-art review articles, provocative roundtable discussions, clinical protocols, and best practices. Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management is the journal of record, published online with Open Access options and in print. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management website at http://www.liebertpub.com/ther.

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New, faster therapeutic hypothermia techniques

Kids Poor Decision-Making May Predict Teen Issues

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By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on October 23, 2014

A new study suggests a display of poor decision making during primary school increases the risk of interpersonal and behavioral difficulties during adolescence.

However, experts view decision-making as a skill and something that can be taught during youth.

Joshua Weller, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the School of Psychological Science at Oregon State University found that when a 10 or 11 year-old shows poor judgment, the potential for high-risk health behavior in their teen years escalates.

These findings suggest that less-refined decision skills early in life could potentially be a harbinger for problem behavior in the future, said Weller.

If poor decision-making patterns can be identified while children are still young, intervention to improve skills can be effective.

Often a variety of mentors parents, educators, and health professionals can effectively help children enhance these skills, said Weller.

This research underscores that decision-making is a skill and it can be taught, he said.The earlier you teach these skills, the potential for improving outcomes increases.

The study was recently published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.

For the investigation, researchers wanted to better understand how pre-adolescent childrens decision-making skills predicted later behavior.

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Kids Poor Decision-Making May Predict Teen Issues

Study to explore how natural disasters transform cultures

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In the future, climate scientists predict, not only will global warming accelerate, but there will be greater impacts from extreme events likedroughts and floods which in turn could lead to serious social consequences, such famine, displacement, and increased violence.

The Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) at Yale University is launching a study to determine how cultures may have adapted to unpredictable natural hazards in the past; the work is supported by a four-year interdisciplinary behavioral science research grant from the National Science Foundation.

Founded in 1949 as a financially independent research agency of Yale University, HRAF is a not-for-profit membership consortium of universities, colleges, and research institutions that aims to encourage and facilitate the cross-cultural study of human culture, society and behavior in the past and present.

The research team will address broad questions such as: How often do events have to occur for humans to plan for them? Do unpredictable hazards lead to different cultural transformations than do more predictable hazards? Under what conditions are contingency plans overwhelmed in the face of natural hazards that are more severe or more frequent than normal?

Answers to these questions, the researchers say, may give insights into humans future engagement with climate change.

A major premise of the research is that climate-related disasters are not new and therefore it is imperative to understand how human societies in the past adapted to unpredictable environments, explains Carol Ember, HRAFs president and the principal investigator. We expect to find that societies living in more unpredictable environments will have arrived at some common solutions, such as wider social networks, more diversification, and more cooperation, as compared with societies living in more predictable environments.

She adds, With our interdisciplinary team, we will be comparing ethnographically described societies, archaeological traditions going back 15,000 years to the recent past, and contemporary countries. We are looking at many different cultural domains, so for much of our research we will use eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology (two online databases developed by HRAF)to speed up finding the information we need.

The research team also includes cultural anthropologists Teferi Abate Adem and Ian Skoggard at HRAF, and Eric C. Jones at the University of Texas-Houston; a cross-cultural psychologist, Michele Gelfand, from the University of Maryland; an archaeologist, Peter N. Peregrine, from Lawrence University , and a climatologist, Benjamin Felzer, from Lehigh University.

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